Chapter 5 - Evelyn PriceEvelyn Price denied the phrase meant score alteration.
“Fix variance” referred to scanning discrepancies.
Possible.
Standardized answer sheets sometimes misread marks.
The audit team requested prior scan-correction logs.
Evelyn’s corrections were usually tiny.
One answer.
Two.
Smudges.
Mason’s corrections were different.
Four answers changed on one benchmark.
Three on another.
Five on a third.
All changes improved his score.
The statistical pattern looked bad.
Still not proof alone.
Then investigators recovered a deleted message.
Victor:
Need him above cutoff.
Evelyn:
I can’t manufacture six points.
Victor:
Not six. Correct what system misses.
Evelyn:
You owe me for this.
Victor:
VP slot is yours if board approves restructure.
There.
Quid pro quo.
Not money in an envelope.
Career.
Evelyn had been promised vice-principal promotion.
Her defense changed.
She hired separate counsel.
Stopped coordinating with Victor.
That was the moment the alliance broke.
Within forty-eight hours, Evelyn requested a proffer with the board’s outside investigators.
She admitted:
Victor began pressuring her two years earlier.
At first:
legitimate retests.
Then:
expanded review packets.
Then:
manual scoring “corrections.”
She told herself Mason suffered from test anxiety.
“He knew material.”
Sometimes true.
She told herself she was correcting the difference between knowledge and performance.
Then Victor started asking for exact thresholds.
“He would say, ‘We know where Mason belongs.’”
Evelyn’s voice cracked.
“I started grading toward the answer he wanted.”
“Did you leak tomorrow’s exam?”
“No.”
“Did Victor?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you agree to alter Mason’s score afterward?”
Long pause.
“I agreed to review it.”
“For errors?”
Another pause.
“For whatever Victor called errors.”
There.
The enabler finally named her role.
She did not blame Victor entirely.
“I wanted the promotion.”
Simple.
Ugly.
Believable.
Then she handed over evidence piece five.
A private spreadsheet she kept because she feared Victor might later deny his instructions.
Dates.
Student.
Original score.
Adjusted score.
Reason.
Approver.
Most entries legitimate.
Mason’s were marked differently.
VH REQUEST
Nine times.
One other student appeared twice.
A donor’s daughter.
That raised danger of expanding the conspiracy.
Investigators checked.
Her changes were legitimate documented accommodation corrections.
Good.
The story stayed focused.
Mason was the pattern.
Evelyn also revealed something Victor had not expected.
He had altered one of Mason’s scores without her.
Using principal override.
“I told him not to.”
“What happened?”
“He said it was his school.”
That sentence captured Victor’s entitlement.
Ridgeway was not his.
Students were not his.
Scores were not his.
Recommendations were not his private currency.
But he had begun treating every system around him as an extension of authority.
Logan’s refusal became intolerable for the same reason Mason’s average score did.
Both said:
You do not control this.
Evelyn lost testing access permanently.
Her vice-principal candidacy ended.
She remained on paid leave while employment proceedings continued.
No immediate immunity.
Cooperation did not erase her actions.
Mason asked to speak with her.
Anna said no at first.
Then stopped.
“Do you want to?”
“Yes.”
The meeting happened with counsel and a counselor present.
Mason sat across from Evelyn.
“Did you think I was stupid?”
Her face collapsed.
“No.”
“Then why change things?”
“I thought your father was helping you.”
“That doesn’t answer.”
She nodded.
“You’re right.”
Mason waited.
“I wanted the promotion.”
There.
No speech.
No excuse.
Mason looked down.
“How many scores?”
“Nine changes. Not all were fraudulent.”
“How many weren’t real?”
Evelyn swallowed.
“Four clearly improper. Two questionable. Three had legitimate retest bases but shouldn’t have been approved the way they were.”
Mason absorbed it.
“Can they fix my record?”
“Yes.”
“Will it go down?”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“Do it.”
Anna’s eyes filled.
Evelyn looked stunned.
Mason repeated:
“Do it.”
That decision cost him.
His class rank would drop.
His New York application might collapse.
His scholarship profile would change.
For the first time in years, Mason chose a lower number because it was actually his.
Then Logan received his own email.
The Metro Scholars examination administrator had been notified about Victor’s attempted cheating solicitation.
They offered Logan a protected alternate test date to avoid any appearance that Mason had accessed his answers.
Logan stared.
Tomorrow’s exam—the thing Victor threatened to use against him—was no longer under Victor’s control at all.
The balance of power was shifting.
But Victor had not surrendered.
His lawyer sent the board a letter that afternoon.
Victor claimed the entire investigation was contaminated because Logan had unlawfully recorded a confidential principal-student meeting.
Rachel read the first page.
Then smiled without humor.
“He’s going after the recorder.”
Logan looked at her.
“Can he?”
May you like
“He can try.”
The object that terrified Victor in Chapter One was about to become the first thing he tried to turn against Logan.
Related Stories
